Rise of a Death Knight
by Hyliian
Summary: The story of an Alliance Warrior risen into the ranks of the Scourge. From Human soldier to Acherus Death Knight and back again.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Rogan ran the whetstone across his blade, trying to school his expression into something that did _not_ resemble total mind-wrenching terror and not entirely succeeding. The other recruits were doing likewise, with varying degrees of success, sparring with one another and trying to squeeze some last minute advice from the handful of veterans scattered throughout the ranks.

When he had joined the army, he'd never really expected to have to go to war. None of them had. The Horde skirmishes were another thing entirely, too few and far between to be considered more than a cursory resistance, but none of those had bothered him as much as what the scouts were reporting.

Scourge. Thousands of them. Too many to count, even for the keen-eyed Hunters sent ahead to try and get an accurate number.

Fighting orcs and trolls were one thing. Fighting the _Scourge_ was much worse. Rogan had heard stories about the abominations and skeletal horrors that made up the majority of the enemy forces; the veterans shuddered as they recounted horrors so unimaginable that they still had trouble believing it had actually occurred, and here they were on the front lines. Waiting.

Living bait.

Rogan did not like this plan. It was times like these he wished he had taken up another class. Rogue, maybe. Anything to get out of the Death Squad he'd been assigned to. But he was a Warrior, and he knew his place… even if he didn't like it.

There were a few Paladins going in with them against the first wave practically glowing in their golden armor—beacons of hope amongst the exhausted and hungry recruits being used as cannon fodder against the monsters: fearless, devout, capable of rendering any type of undead creature helpless with a single swing of their blade. Rogan was glad to have them along, although if it were up to him, the entire front line would be made of Paladins. He was sure there was a very good reason for why the least experienced and most likely to die were being pitted against the freshest and most aggressive of the Scourge ranks.

He just didn't know what that reason was.

He set his sword down in his lap and sighed at it. His gear wasn't very durable. Quantity over quality seemed to be the new Alliance army motto, and it didn't take much of an imagination to envision his armor riddled with arrows.

Hahren collapsed beside him, wiping his forehead with the back of a gloved hand and heaving a sigh. He looked exhausted, but who wasn't?

"How bad it is?" Rogan asked him quietly, glancing around at his fellow recruits, all watching covertly, waiting for a report from the Hunter returning from his scout.

Hahren shook his head. "Bad. They just… go on forever." He frowned and let his head drop into his hands. Rogan wasn't surprised to see them shaking. He doubted he would have the courage to come back to camp after seeing what Hahren had seen. Deserter is better than dead. "I'll be honest with you Rogan… I don't hold out much hope for us."

"Well I appreciate the honesty, at least." Rogan huffed. "Where's that damned wolf of yours? Not eating my boots again, I hope."

Hahren glanced pointedly down at Rogan's feet. "Unless I'm mistaken you're already _wearing_ your boots."

"Doesn't mean he wouldn't chew on them."

Hahren snorted. "True. Bjor's in the stables. I… didn't want to risk him. He's not exactly the epitome of stealth, you know."

"You could always get a cat. Most Hunters use those anyway." Rogan smirked at the frown on his friend's face.

"I've had Bjor since I first learned how to shoot a bow. I'm not going to go frolicking in the woods like a blasted Night Elf just for the sake of a pet with some stealth." Hahren ran his fingers through his short hair. "Don't tell Silnari I said that. She'll hurt me."

Rogan barked a laugh. "Knowing your luck she probably heard that comment even from the other end of camp."

Hahren smiled and shook his head as he stood. "Well I've got to go… hand this report in. Damn it." He lowered his voice. "Look, don't tell anyone I said this, but the Scourge are a _lot_ closer than we thought they were. My best guess? They'll be on us in a matter of hours. Be ready when it happens."

Rogan nodded and watched the Hunter head off for the command tents. Somehow that bit of news didn't surprise him. He looked out over the plains where the two armies were to meet and could already make out the black mass on the edge of the horizon.

Soon it would be time to test that luck of his.

* * *

><p>Rogan held his sword and shield in a white-knuckled grip, staring wide eyed at the veritable horde of… <em>things<em>… heading their way. He wasn't ashamed to admit that his hands shook so hard it was almost impossible to keep his shield at the ready. He wasn't ashamed to be having second thoughts about fighting for king and country.

He was, after all, handling the entire thing much better than the two recruits on either side of him who, if he was any judge, were already on the verge of tears.

The speech the generals had given earlier hadn't exactly been very inspiring, mostly reiterating the fact that they would most likely all die today, but that was okay because they were doing so so the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms would be safe. Rogan couldn't really care less about the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms right now. He was a bit preoccupied trying not to wet himself as soon as the first massive undead giant cleared the rise and drew itself into view. Even at this distance, he could tell it would be huge. More joined it and Rogan tried out a few new colorful curses under his breath.

The first wave of the Scourge was made of _abominations_? Of course they were. Skeletons would be too easy, wouldn't it? Can't have that!

_Light preserve us._ Rogan took a deep breath and not for the first time wished there would be more Paladins on their side tonight. He could stand to see a few Avenger's Shields breaking some Scourge heads right about now.

The signal was given and the Hunters lined up on the nearby ridge readied arrows. Rogan didn't bother looking back at them; it was enough to know they were there. Maybe they'd get lucky and a few of those walking nightmares would go down before they reached the front lines.

Then he heard the horn and his feet were moving forward at a run alongside the others, working on instinct and reflex more than conscious thought. As the two forces drew together, he noticed there _were_ some skeletal horrors between him and the abominations. Thank the Light for small favors.

Reason was lost in the clashing of weapons, the ringing of steel on steel, the odd sensation of being nicked or cut only to have the flesh knit back together under the watchful eye of the Priests near the back. For every Scourge he cut down three more took its place. He saw men and women he'd come to call friends cut down by ghouls and gheists that appeared out of thin air. Paladins drawing the brunt of the aggression just by being there in the first place were swarmed and torn apart, the very Light they called on to aid them snuffed out under the taint of the Scourge.

An arrow embedded itself in his shield arm but he gritted his teeth and pressed on. He barely even felt it; the war raging around him was far more important and life-threatening than a single arrow. When his shield fell from limp fingers he spared the wound another glance.

Not one arrow. Four.

He jerked his head up when a hulking abomination appeared at the edge of his vision and he froze momentarily in horror. He'd never seen something so monstrous, so unnatural, so… _wrong_. Extra limbs holding axes and curved blades, bands of iron barely holding in entrails that threatened to empty on the ground with every step through the gaping hole in its center. He knew how they were made. Those were good soldiers, pieced together from the carnage of a previous battle and reworked into a weapon of the Scourge. That could be him in a few days.

The Scourge were infamous for not wasting _anything_.

A glint of steel drew his eye in time for the Scourge hook to tear through the thin chainmail of his chest and he could feel it catching under his skin. He had only a moment to appreciate the excruciating pain of it before he was being dragged through the air along the rusted chain.

He hit the ground rolling, the hook still caught in his chest, and looked up in time to see the abomination's blade coming down towards him.

A flash of light. A single moment where time slowed to a crawl and the only thing he could see was the wicked sword.

And then nothing.

* * *

><p>'<em>All that I am: anger, cruelty, vengeance - I bestow upon you, my chosen knight. I have granted you immortality so that you may herald in a new, dark age for the Scourge.'<em>

Rogan's fingers twitched and he struggled to lift his broken body up on his elbows. He opened his eyes but saw nothing for the span of several moments, vision fading into place as he blinked. Everything felt… _wrong_. He shouldn't be alive. He felt the abomination's blade. He had its hook sunk into his torso. His entire left arm had been useless due to the multitude of arrows broken off into his shoulder.

His hand drifted to his shield arm and fingers traced the path of several jagged scars. Arrow wounds. He knelt and with shaking hands felt his chest.

There. The path of the Scourge hook. And _here_… where the sword had pierced his heart. He flattened his palm over his chest but he felt no pulse. He drew a breath he didn't need, body acting on a memory of air that he no longer required, and looked up into the eyes of a man in cerulean armor and glowing blue eyes.

He had failed. He had died.

So why was he here?

The man with the unnerving eyes peered at him, stroking his chin. "This one… this one has awoken too soon. It retains emotion and memory…"

Rogan felt the fingers of an alien mind in his own, brushing aside everything but the need to _kill_, to utterly _annihilate_ something until nothing remained, to sink his blade into the flesh of an enemy and listen to the sweet music of its death. He shook his head, digging fingers into the hard stone beneath him and pushed himself to his feet.

He met the man's eyes and stared him down unflinchingly. There was a time when the sight of a rotting corpse of a man standing before him would have terrified him. But what was one man compared to an army of the Scourge? What was one man compared to death?

The man grinned. "A harbinger of death is reborn..." He unfolded his arms and gestured to the large antechamber. "Listen, death knight… Listen for the voice of your master. He calls to you now."

Rogan listened. He could hear it, the faintest brush of sound on the fringes of his mind. A whisper, promises of chaos and destruction, a silent command to _submit_ and _obey_ that he was powerless to fight.

He took a step forward and almost buckled under the sensation of it. How long had it been since that night on the battlefield? How long had he lain there amongst the corpses of good men and women, lost within the slew of Scourge? It was not muscle that moved him now. It was something black and twisted; a madness in his blood that pulled him on despite how hard he fought against it.

The more he struggled for control, the harder it became to remember why he was fighting at all. The more he resisted, the more of himself bled away into the chaos of whispers dominating his thoughts.

'_Give in to the darkness, death knight.'_

Rogan obeyed. He was helpless to do otherwise. This Voice, this _presence_, commanded the fire in his blood and it was by its will that he know suffering or mercy. His feet took him up a flight of stairs and through a ring of light that was blinding in its intensity, but it sent him no pain. His eyes no longer needed the light to see. He shunned anything to do with the light.

The whispers became frenzied as he fell to his knee, ignoring the urge to stand. If he fought he would lose himself. Only by submitting could he fight at all.

If he were capable of knowing fear, he would feel it at that moment. The Lich King.

The whispers bade him rise and he obeyed them, walking to the edge of the floating necropolis and peering down at the lands spread below him like a feast.

'_Gaze now upon the lands below us. The Scarlet Crusade scurries to undo my work, while Light's Hope stands defiantly against us - a blemish upon these Plaguelands. They must all be shown the price of their defiance.' _

Rogan smiled. Yes. There would be so much death, so much pain… he would slake his bloodthirst on those who dared stand against the might of the Lich King.

'_You will become my force of retribution. Where you tread, doom will follow. Go now and claim your destiny, death knight.'_

His destiny. There had been a time when that meant fighting for the Alliance, giving his life in service of his king, going off to war with the Scourge. How the tables have turned.

He had paid his price in blood. The Alliance had sent him off to die, left him to bleed out on the battlefield amidst the bittersweet stench of rot and decay. The Scourge had broken him down and rebuilt him. He had been imperfect. Human. Now he was something more. He was Death incarnate, a Knight under the service of his new King.

Rogan had a new purpose.

_Chaos._


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Rogan stumbled once his feet cleared the portal, the whispers of his Highlord and former master still clawing at the edges of his mind. The force of having his memories returned to him had been staggering, and had he not been mounted on his Deathcharger he would have struck the ground.

He gripped the reins of his warhorse and glanced up at the impressive battlements of Stormwind, aware that his sudden and inexplicable arrival had attracted the attention of several guards posted outside the gates. He did not fear the guards. The ability to do so had been stripped from him alongside his mortality and humanity.

He was something else now. Something born of darkness and hate, freed from the Lich's will but still bound to his malice. Rogan doubted he would be welcomed with open arms into the city that had sent him off to die.

Anger burned through his veins at the sight of the city sitting smug and unharmed here in Elwynn. He had lived there once, in peace and safety, confident in his own ability to live at ease alongside the other races of the Alliance. He had known soldiers went off to die in order for him to live, but he had taken them forgranted. He had accepted their deaths as a necessary evil; they had died so that he may live, and therefore his life was worth more than theirs.

_Necessary evil._ Rogan snorted. There was no such thing. Necessary _good_ perhaps, but evil is evil no matter how you look at it.

That lesson had been branded into his soul the moment he awoke inside Acherus.

Then it had been _his_ life on the line, and suddenly everything he had ever taken for granted became a luxury denied him as he lay broken on the battlefield. He would never feel his heart beat within his chest. He would never taste his wife's homemade apple pie, never experience the joy of fatherhood.

He was no longer human.

He was a Death Knight. He was the _Scourge_, at least as far as the rest of the Alliance would be concerned. And therein lay his problem.

He ignored the stares of the guards and pulled the letter the Highlord had handed him from his bag, staring at it. Fordring and Mograine expected him to deliver this to the _King_? Were they _insane_?

He doubted the guards would allow him within a hundred paces of the front gate, much less King Varian. There was very little about him that even remotely resembled the man he had once been.

He still had his full head of dark hair, for which he was grateful—some of the other initiates had not been so fortunate—and he had use of all his faculties. More than one of the initiates that he was forced to cut down had been missing limbs or digits.

He supposed it was a stroke of fortune that the abomination's hook had not torn any permanent holes in him other than the obvious scars on his torso. It had surely not seemed like it at the time.

Being in one piece just wasn't very important in the grand scheme of things while you had the Lich King whispering in your mind and the bloodthirst burning in your soul. If you lost a limb or a jaw, it was a minor inconvenience that simply made it all the more rewarding when someone fell to your blade.

But now, staring at the gates of Stormwind, he was thankful for small blessings. Going in with glowing blue eyes and looking like the picture of death would be hard enough without adding looking like a deformed cripple to the mix.

With a mental command he urged the Deathcharger forward at a walk. A Scourge planning to storm the gates would not be walking calmly, and he hoped the gesture would be enough to stop him from being shot on sight.

Not that an arrow would be able to bring him down, but he had enough scars as it was and didn't really desire any more.

The guards were tense and he could see their wide eyes through the slits in their helms as he passed. They were probably too startled to react to his presence. That, or they were just waiting for him to get inside before swarming him. He almost wanted them to attack. The bloodlust ached within him and his fingers itched to draw his Runeblade and bury it to the hilt in the chest of the nearest guard immediately.

He resisted the urge. Barely.

The first few guards' lack of reaction proved to be the exception, not the rule. The other guards began cursing him and spitting at his feet, but none drew a blade against him. He supposed keeping his own blade sheathed and his flaming steed to a walk was enough to stay their hands, and this surprised and disappointed him.

Once he reached the Market District, time seemed to slow as everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the Scourge on horseback stride confidently through the streets. He saw more than one merchant bolt back into their homes or stores and slam the door as if a piece of flimsy wood would be enough to stop him should he desire entrance.

Two children darted in front of him from around a corner, screaming and backpeddling once he and his steed came into view. The boy dropped the doll he'd been holding and fell to his rear, staring wide-eyed with terror as guards took a step closer.

Rogan spared the boy a cold glance and his Deathcharger pawed the ground with a flaming hoof, snorting as sparks flew from the cobblestones.

How many children had decorated his blade during the Scarlet siege? A dozen? A hundred? He had lost count once keeping score with his fellows had become tiresome. When the fool child stayed frozen to the ground, he sighed and guided his horse around the obstacle and continued on his way.

The desire to let his steed trample the boy underfoot had passed through him briefly, but he figured doing so would be counterproductive to his current goal of reaching the King. The guards had hesitated once he passed the child, confusion and fear still written on their faces.

He snorted as he passed a group of them. They thought to understand the workings of the Scourge? No wonder the army had failed so spectacularly the day he fell. Had he had the knowledge he did now, he could have turned the tide.

He knew how they thought. He knew how they worked. He knew how they reasoned—or didn't. He knew the mind of the one who controlled them as well as his own. The Scourge were not a collection of individuals; the Scourge were a unit, a single consciousness devoid of free will, guided by the iron mind of the Lich King.

Only the Death Knights had been outside the cycle, and only then after facing betrayal.

He drew his Deathcharger to a halt at the entrance to the keep, slightly amazed that he had made it this far unhindered. He had expected to have to carve a swath of death and chaos through the city proper in order to reach this point; it was the only reason he had agreed to deliver this message in the first place. The possibility of violence and the absence of fear had been enough to convince him, though he was no more able to deny the will of his Highlord than he had the Lich King… if for different reasons.

Swinging down and dismounting in a practiced, fluid motion, he left his steed among the startled guards and advanced into the Keep. It was grander than he remembered, although there was no way to know how long ago it had been since he had fallen in battle.

Months? Years? Decades? Time had not ravaged him thanks to the Lich King's tainted magic, but so much had changed he could only assume years had passed.

The guards in the keep were more vocal in their displeasure, calling him names and crying out for someone to bring a rope, or commenting on the upcoming execution they were sure to have. He didn't so much as glance at a single one of them.

They were inconsequential. Unimportant. Useless. Weak. He could tear them apart with his bare hands if he had to, and he would if they so much as twitched in his general direction. The Highlord had not forbade him from defending himself, after all. They may have been the elite, but he was worth any ten of them in a fight. He knew this as well as he knew the patchwork of scars and welts crossing his back and torso from his times as a harbinger of death. He was far from invulnerable, after all.

He was merely much, much harder to kill.

He paused at the thought. Could he even be killed? Could a walking corpse re-enter the afterlife? Had he entered the afterlife at _all_? He was uncertain, and he found himself curious to discover the truth for himself. It had seemed only a matter of seconds between falling on the plains and awaking as a servant of the Lich King, although the pale flesh of his skin and the deterioration of his mind hinted at a much longer period of inactivity.

It awoke a new torrent of hatred towards the Lich King, to have stolen from him what he had been promised upon his death. He may never enter the Light now. How could he? He was an instrument of the Scourge, the walking dead. With a snarl that had the guards backing up a step he continued his trek.

No point dwelling on what he could not control. He had learned that early on during his stay in Acherus. Attempting to fight what was out of your reach was as pointless as resisting the Lich King's will. He would win in the end, he always did, so there was no point delaying the inevitable.

He entered the chamber and was stunned at the lack of response from the guards as he approached the King.

At least the fool human had the sense to have his swords drawn. Empty threats fell from his lips and Rogan ignored them, much to the King's irritation. He was no king of his, after all. Rogan answered to the Highlord, not this vessel of flesh and spirit.

He handed the king his message and waited dispassionately while the he read over Fordring's message. Rogan did not know what it said; the letter was not sealed but he had no reason to care about the contents. If it had concerned him, the Highlord would have told him what rested within.

Rogan was almost surprised when the King announced that the Death Knights would join as a part of the Alliance, but nothing truly surprised him anymore. Especially not after a lone member of the Scourge managed to get all the way to the King—at a _walk_—without so much a blade raised in opposition.

He considered telling the King this, or at least warning him about future attacks that his guards decided to ignore and throw insults at rather than prevent. He chose not to, for he really didn't care.

The human King was a fool, and Rogan had slain enough men in his rebirth to recognize a lost cause when he saw one. He toyed with the idea of severing the human's head while he spoke his decree. It would be amusing to watch his guards scramble to defend him in the span of three seconds it would take to accomplish the task.

'_Harness your hate; make it useful.'_

Rogan stilled the bloodlust rising in his veins. The Highlord was right, of course. This was not the King he had set his eyes upon, and not the one whose blood he desired to spill.

He turned on his heel and departed the Keep, not wishing to spend a moment longer than necessary within its halls. Being within the city walls was… he supposed _unnerving_ would be the proper term.

For the first time since he had re-awoken, he had a choice. He had free will, with only the remnants of malice at the edge of his subconscious. He could do what he wished.

And he wished to get out of this forsaken city before he began slaughtering everything that breathed. With a flick of thought he summoned his Deathcharger from the Void and mounted, giving the steed the free reign to run as fast as it wished so long as it didn't crush anyone underfoot.

The last thing he needed was to cause an incident so soon after accomplishing his quest. With a grin Rogan listened to the crack of his steed's hooves against the flagstone, the thunder of their strikes a crack in the silence.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Rogan was far from the only Death Knight in Stormwind. As soon as the King's declaration was made known, others came from Acherus to put themselves to use fighting for the Alliance. Again.

It was a bitter thought, and he found himself longing for a good fight. No one would challenge him, much to his chagrin. He was eventually forced to find one of his kindred and on a mutual agreement based on their unparalleled boredom, they crossed blades. The other Death Knight was nowhere near as skilled as he, probably a fresh initiate who hadn't been present at the Lich King's betrayal, but they both fought with the full ferocity and hatred isolated to the Scourge. Onlookers gaped as neither pulled their strikes, drawing blood and rending flesh as if this were more than an ordinary duel.

Rogan had a new scar adorning his face after the fight, and his opponent had eight. It was a good scar, intimidating and noticeable enough to be impressive, so he thanked the initiate and they withdrew as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

The healers in the area had been baffled and guards shocked at the amount of blood now staining the Marketplace. Dueling wasn't exactly _allowed_ in the city walls, but none of the Death Knights truly answered to the King and feared no retribution for doing what they had been created to do.

He was calmer afterwards, more relaxed, and he found himself walking the streets of Stormwind in relative comfort. The reprieve would not last long, this he knew; the bloodthirst was unquenchable except by constant suffering. It had been the reason the Lich King had kept slaves and prisoners to be tortured. Only pain could ease the ache and stop the throbbing headaches that accompanied their need to kill, to rend, to _obliterate_.

He had glanced up at his old home as he passed it, wondering idly if his wife still lived there, but felt no inclination to enter or reveal his presence. He was no longer Rogan the Smith or Rogan the Soldier. He was Rogan of the Ebon Blade, and Stormwind was no longer his home.

He was incapable of fear and found compassion a weakness, but the idea of his wife seeing him as he was now… it bothered him. The pain she would feel if she saw him as an exiled member of the Scourge would be tremendous, and would most likely slake his thirst for several hours, but the idea of causing her any amount of suffering was almost unbearable.

And so he avoided the house, giving it as wide a berth as the canals allowed, and almost subconsciously picking up his pace. If he ran into her on the street, that was unavoidable and most certainly not his fault. But if he deliberately sought her out only to let her glimpse the rotting corpse of her husband walking around in a macabre semblance of life… that was a line in the sand he was not ready to cross.

The revelation surprised him enough so that he stopped in his tracks to consider it. He… _pitied_ her. It repulsed him that he was capable of feeling _pity_ for a mortal, even if that mortal had at one time meant something to him. He was no longer Rogan. He should not care what the woman thought if she saw him. In fact, he should seek her out for the very reason that it would be cruel.

He was a weapon, an instrument of destruction honed to an edge so fine that he could walk the line of undeath and drag others across it. He could raise corpses as ghouls and condemn them to mindless servitude if he so wished.

He snarled and considered calling his Deathcharger and storming the gates to find something to kill, no matter how small it may be. The heavy black plate of his armor glowed with his rage, and his fingers twitched towards the hilt of his blade. Being around these mortals was making him soft.

He could not allow that to happen. He could not become an idle worker waiting for orders. He had control now, and if he chose to lose that control it should be his _choice_, not something he could not stop. He did not desire to be complacent or compassionate. These were weaknesses and he needed to get rid of them. Immediately.

'_For us there is no peace, no rest.'_

Rogan agreed wholeheartedly—whatever worth a still heart could have—and he stalked down the street at an angry pace. He stormed past a man in leathers with a snarling wolf at his side and just barely resisted the urge to decapitate the man as he passed.

He had to work out this rage or he was going to do something rash. Like start to _care_.

He heard the Hunter come to a stop behind him and felt the speed of the man's pulse shoot up an octave. It was enough to slow him. Fear was something tangible. He could work with fear. It refreshed him, made him more aware.

Perhaps all was not lost.

"…_Rogan_?"

Rogan froze. Only his fellow Death Knights knew his name. The Hunter was no Scourge; that much was obvious. Rogan turned and allowed himself to indulge in a moment of curiosity as he studied the man behind him who was staring wide-eyed in disbelief and horror. A memory pulled at his consciousness, black edging his vision as the sudden agony of remembrance sent him staggering into the nearest wall, where he braced himself with one hand, pressing his brow with the other.

The memories were not like other pain. They did not bring him joy or relief or clarity. They brought only agony, the agony of having a part of you burned forcibly away by the dark malice of the Lich King, only to be seared back onto your eyes just for the sake of causing suffering. As much as it pained him, he reveled in these small victories, these small triumphs against the powers of his former master. For every memory that returns itself to him, he pulls that much farther away from the remainders of the Lich's will.

Flashes of green, trees, a wolf cub with a name he could never pronounce, the battlefield, the Scourge, a _name_.

He opened his glowing eyes and fixed them on the Hunter, for the first time since he awoke not feeling the claws of his bloodthirst. "Hahren." It is not a question. The memories are returned to him; he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt the identity of his oldest friend.

A friend lost amongst the carnage of the plains and the searing pain of having a Scourge hook shoved through his chest.

"By the Light, Rogan…" Hahren gasped, taking a step forward only to think better of it and step back again. "What… what _happened_ to… I thought… you were _dead_!"

Rogan pressed his hand back to his brow. This was exactly what he had tried to avoid with his wife. But, as he said, running into him on the street was in no way his fault and he tried not to feel guilt over it.

"Rogan what… you sound so…" Hahren did take a step closer then.

"I was remade." Rogan intoned in a voice echoed by blackness and magic. "The Scourge waste nothing."

Hahren paled and he too sought the wall for support. "Remade? You mean you… you're a _Scourge_? What are you… why are you in Stormwind?"

"I am here because we were betrayed. I am here to seek vengeance against the Lich King, as are my fellow Knights of the Ebon Blade." Rogan paused. The forgotten memories made him want to take a breath, but he knew he did not need it and resisted the urge. "I am a Death Knight, Hahren."

Hahren let out a shaky exhale. "Light preserve me, a Death Knight? Oh, Rogan…"

Rogan shook his head. "I do not want your pity. I do not want your compassion. The only things I know are hate and cruelty, and the only thing I _want_ is to sink my Runeblade hilt-deep into the heart of the Lich King who rebuilt me."

Hahren paused. "Do you want my friendship?"

Rogan froze. "Friendship… it is a _foreign_ concept. But… I remember having friends before I was remade. I remember enjoying having them."

Rogan furrowed his brow. Friends were not something Death Knights had. Contact, connection, familiarity, these were things the Lich King could and would use against you to maintain his control. Only by isolating oneself could you hope to maintain even a shred of humanity. But he was outside the Lich King's will now. To have friends would be to spite the Lich King and everything he had made his subjects undergo for his own pleasure.

Rogan smiled, a cruel, cold smile that made Hahren pale further. "Yes. Friendship is something I would like to have again, if only to spite the Lich that cursed me."

Yes… friendship was something he could use. Another step on his road to vengeance.


End file.
